This "Fair Pay" March Madness Bracket Is Absolutely Brilliant

Your social feeds may be filling with "March Madness" fodder, but the American Association of University Women wants you to tackle a different kind of bracket entirely—university-by-university match-ups based on the gender pay gap of male and female graduates from each school.

The "Fair Pay Face-Off" asks participants to make match-up picks based on the size of pay gaps between female and male graduates of each competing school. Schools with the smallest gender pay gaps advance the farthest in the tournament. "It's a great way to draw further attention to the pay gap," Lisa Maatz, AAUW's vice president of government relations, tells The Washington Post.

To determine its own bracket, the AAUW takes the NCAA bracket for both the men's and women's tournaments and calculates the gender pay gap of each school's graduates using median earnings—10 years after graduation—as reported to the U.S. Department of Education. "The school whose graduates have a smaller gender pay gap advance to the next round," the AAUW explains.

Based on the AAUW's calculations, Alabama State wins the women's tournament bracket. This Southern university boasts a 99 percent earnings ratio, the AAUW says, with the school's female graduates earning 99 cents for every dollar their male peers make.

Finalists in the women's bracket include St. John's University, with an 89 percent earning ratio; North Carolina A&T University, with an 89 percent earning ratio; and University at Albany, with an 85 percent earning ratio. All final four schools, the AAUW notes, beat the national average of women, making just 79 percent of what their male coworkers are paid.

In the men's tournament, Hampton University takes home the trophy. According to the AAUW, "It is the only school with an earnings ratio in which female graduates are paid more on average than male graduates do—109 cents for every dollar male graduates are paid."

The final four universities in the men's bracket (in addition to Hampton University) are Florida Gulf Coast University, with a 91 percent earning ratio; Virginia Commonwealth University, with an 88 percent earning ratio; and Temple University, with an 87 percent earning ratio.

Even the top-performing universities have a way to go before they close the gender pay gap completely, but Maatz told the Post that with a little work—such as holding negotiation workshops and encouraging high-paying departments to recruit and welcome female students—there's hope they can close it.